Olympic Storage Program

In an effort to cut down on the amount of visible shopping carts in the Downtown East Side during the Olympic Games, a wonderful program was started between the City of Vancouver and the First United Church. This pilot program provides storage containers for homeless people so that they may secure their belonging (for free) and access them anytime throughout the day or night (they simply have to remember their number and provide their name). This program eliminates the problem of guarding their belongings, a problem for many people using shelters and a source of anxiety and violence in the community. The service is free and is located right beside the First United Church on Main St (shown above). This is an example of a program created to make the homeless population less visible to tourists during the games but if continually funded could greatly benefit them long term. I discovered it on my Downtown East Side walkabout.